GNG’s Top 5 TV Shows of 2015

It is the new year and you know what that means, yes another year-end list!We at Geekly News Gazette have taken an arbitrary non-scientific poll of the shows we consider to be the creme de la creme of the year.Though all that succeeded in doing was fanning out the staff’s fandoms that no one else follows, these five shows popped up on different staffers’ top picks of the year.

5. The Walking Dead

The biggest TV show on cable still breaks records every season for a reason, it gives viewers what they want, and that is more gore and zombies. In its sixth season, the show has further developed the group’s ties to Alexandria while strengthening the threat of other humans as opposed to walkers. Also this season, a certain controversial death (?) happened that polarized all viewers and the talk was inescapable, sadly for anyone who watched the show on delay. We know what it means when you type a character’s name in all caps Twitterers.

4. One Punch Man

Saitama is an extremely powerful fighter who is so OP he can defeat any monster or villain with just one punch, hence the name. This show is a winking parody of all fighting action anime like One Piece and Dragonball Z, where the heroes always win and there are hours of dialogue preluding every punch.
Sataima is plain and dull visually intentionally (imagine if Krillin was the real powerful one) and his powers come from a lame training regimen that cannot in any logical way lead to having his power. Countless bad guys attack the cities but he dispatches them so easily and gruesomely that he is quite bored and experiences deep pathos looking for a challenge.

3. The Flash

Premiering last year to against all odds become the best comic book TV series, The Flash has kept its electric momentum (for the most part) by giving us more Cisco, more drama, and of course more metahumans. Though a good amount of episodes has been setting up its upcoming spin off Legends of Tomorrow, starring Wentworth Miller as the implausibly hot Captain Cold, the show has made sure to keep us up to their pace smoothly folding in Hawkgirl, Hawkman, and again, more Captain Cold. The Flash has more than matched its predecessor Arrow, it’s surpassed it in many ways.

2. Mr. Robot

I had no intention of ever watching a show called Mr. Robot, but after months of egging on from trusted friends I gave it a shot and in my opinion found the best TV show of the year. Each episode plays out like an early 2000s indie movie from the likes of Darren Aronofsky or Christopher Nolan before he sold his soul for fanboy jizz.
The series follows Elliott, a hacker who works at a top cyber security firm by day and performs vigilante hacker justice by night. Through the series he becomes entangled in a major hack with a group of ragtag hackers set on taking down E Corp (read: Evil Corp) the biggest conglomerate in the pocket of the one percent.

1. Master of None

Fans already knew Aziz Ansari to be funny, clever, endearing, and relatable, what this show does is highlight all of those qualities and gives us his character Dev as a proxy for the depth of the millennial generation. From trendy food trucks, hot spots, and bars, Dev shows how deep and shallow the current generation is and can be, tackling sexism, racial bias, and maturity.Dev lives life in an exploratory manner, a modern renaissance man in a way who looks at other people’s points of view but hasn’t really mastered his own life and relationships, hence the title reference, “jack of all trades, master of none.”(This is an overly simplified take on the show, I’ll have a more in depth review later.)

Tied for Honorable Mentions:

Jane the Virgin – A fast paced, winking parody of just about any soapy drama with enough drama of its own to hold up, it has a cast of characters that you can’t help but root for, especially in Jaime Camil’s lovable Rogelio or Golden Globe winner Gina Rodriguez’s title character Jane Gloriana Villanueva (whom the Globe’s social media mistook for America Ferrara).

Transparent – The show that is currently breaking ground for streaming TV and episodic series at once, especially for the LGBT, emphasis on the T, community. There is no pandering, no pedestals, and no pulpits, just real flawed characters and their amusing and bemusing stories.

Adventure Time – What can be said about animated series that seems to get better every year and allows its character to grow and develop each year. With all the same and more inane and funny characters and adventures, it seems the only limit to this show is itself.

Steven Universe – What Transparent is doing for TV in general, Steven Universe is doing for animated series. Bringing more depth and understanding of human emotions and relationships to episodic animation, this show is a gem in the rough.

The Goldbergs – Nerds and geeks on TV via retro 80s flashback proxy. The main attraction here is Troy Gentile’s portrayal of Barry Goldberg, aka Big Tasty, a suburban white kid who is a huge dork but thinks he’s the best at everything, thanks to his smother Bev.

Portlandia – Who could have predicted that a skit show starring one of the most underrated Saturday Night Live cast members and a punk rock legend with minimal previous acting experience would be one of the funniest shows on TV and be five seasons deep? Not many.

Blackish – Generic? Yes. Different? Yes. It’s kind of a successor to The Bernie Mac Show, in that it focuses on what it necessarily means to be black and middle class today and what coming from humble roots is about.

Daredevil – Arguably one of the best comic book TV shows, it makes you forget all of the sins of the Daredevil movie starring Batfleck, and brings you down to the dirty cops and politics that embroil this Daredevil’s Hell’s Kitchen. Best portrayal of Kingpin.

Bloodline – A tense family drama where what’s important is the relationship and meaning of those relationships and the secrets those relationships keep.

Brooklyn Nine Nine – One of the most underrated comedies on TV, it deserves your attention for Terry Crews’ being Terry Crews and Andre Braugher’s hilariously deadpan Captain Holt (rarely has gravitas been this funny), but it keeps your attention with the rest of the cast’s undeniable chemistry.

The Leftovers – There is a mysterious central phenomena to the series that never gets explained, where the first season faltered by relying too heavily on that mystery, the second season rebounded to focus on the real heart of the story, how the characters deal with it.

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[…] true. So many great shows get overlooked for more well known and more hyped shows. Even our own non-scientific best of 2015 list, I left off such amazing favorites such as The Americans, Jessica Jones, Orphan Black, Black […]

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